I've been, sitting in front of a blank screen
for some time now attempting to come up with a definitive statement describing
the incredible diversity and importance of the work of Rozz Williams.
My difficulty most likely stems from the fact that my own relationship
with his music has been so personal and long lasting that I am having
trouble drawing any kind of broad generalization from such an intimate
place within me. His music has been the soundtrack to many of the major
happenings in my life, as well as faithful companion when others fade
away. I have grown along with his many changing images and sounds, from
the punk-laden dirge of early Christian Death to the violent experimentations
of Premature Ejaculation and Heltir, to the murky guitars of Shadow Project
through the melancholy yet strangely contented reunion with Gitane Demone
in Dream Home Heartache. Artist, poet, musician, he is truly a man of
1000 faces, and I have taken confort in the presence of these faces during
shaky times of transition as well as grounded stability. His refusal to
be pigeonholed has inspired me during times of introspective self-exploration,
and I have since emerged a more confident person. These are but a few
of the way's he has touched my life and though his work, may have similar
meanings to others. I write these words from a perspective that is truly
personal. That being said, I will give up trying to come up with some
profound, all-encompassing summary of his influential work and simply
present selections of our recent conversation (yeah. I know what a cop-out).

You recently joined Gitane demone an a/bunt and
a tour. What prompted the reunion?
We hadn't seen each other in quite awhile. I was doing a tour in Europe,
and she came to one of the shows in Germany. We just got together again
as friends and stayed in contact over the phone. She suggested maybe doing
a single, which was really what the album was going to be. We just kept
doing it that 'way, over the phone, and then I got over there and it turned
into a bit more than a single.
So you hadn't kept in touch over the years?
No, it had been, oh man, probably about 1985 since I had seen her last.
Of course, things weren't too well between me and everyone at that point.
She had made sonic attempts to contact me, but I was a bit upset. But,
you know, when I saw her again I just kind of put all that behind me.

How did your tour together go?
It went well. It was a lot of fun. Some crowds vary, as usual. Mexico
City was great. There was a riot there, so that was a lot of fun.What incited that?
What they were telling us was the economy is so had that generally kids
don't have any money to do things with. So, when a concert comes to town,
that's the one thing that they will save their money for. They crammed
in too many people in the hall and fights started breaking out, and the
cops were gassing people outside because there were still people out there.
It was Interesting... But, the tour went very well.
I caught it in San Francisco and in San Jose
San Jose was a little crazy for me, I was a little our of my mind that
night. I think after awhile.
sometimes. after touring its like you just kind of have a little nervous
breakdown and then try to get
back into it again.

One of the things I've noticed when watching different
bands play to gothic crowds is that the audiences are often exceedingly
rude to the performers. There were a lot of people talking, and this is
something that happens all the time, I'm certain you know... When the
music is as quiet as what you were doing with Gitane, it is hard or distracting
for you to perform to people who either aren't getting it or don't care?It
irritates me sometimes. I'd prefer to have people throwing chairs at me
or hating me so much than to be just so indifferent to it to sit there
chatting about what they did at work that day or whatever. It's like,
"Well, what did come here for?"

How do you feel about the gothic scene today? Has
the mentaly changed much over the years?I dont know. I dont consider myself a part of the
gothic scene. I dont go out to the clubs, so I don't really see it much
unless I'm doing a show, and then sometimes it seems a wee bit superficial,
you know. It's just funny seeing the whole image and dress and style and
everything, which can be really great, but it seems like for a lot of
the people, thats their main concern. They dont have many questions behind
what they're doing.

It doesn t go any deeper than that. Do you see it
as more of a fashion show these days?Yeah, a lot of times, which is kind of sad, you
know? Yeah, it can be a great fashion show, but there are other things
to talk about and look at and realize.

You have be a big part of that scene, directly or
indirectly, but you seem to constantly change your musical styles. Do
you find that you have a core audience or does your doing different projects
confuse people?l think it seems to be changing a bit lately. You
know, for a long time it was basically a core audience. Everybody would
come to whatever show it was; if it was Premature Ejaculation, Shadow
Project, or whatever, expecting the same thing, I guess: But now, it has
started to get more diversified. I've noticed that we did a couple of
Premature Ejaculation shows recently and the crowds were more varied,
and I saw some faces that didn't exactly seem to fit into the whole gothic
thing. It's always nice ro have a variation.

One thing I noticed when watching a Premature Ejaculation
show was that nothing I heard that night was similar to what I was familiar
with from the albums. Is Premature Ejaculation primarily improv? Well for most of the shows, we don't rend to say,
"OK, we're going to do this piece from this CD and this one from
that one." It's generally just done either improv or making a backing
tape and then improvising over it.

Does Chuck Collision do most of the music with you
filling in the gaps? I mean does he do the underlying soundscapes?
It always changes. We take turns on who's going to mastermind the basic
tape behind what's going on and the basic idea of what's going on. If
it gets too confused, then I take over, and if I get too confused, he
does, [laughter]

And the confusion may add something wonderful to
it? Yeah! [laughter]

You're covered a wide array of artists, from Bowie
to Roxy Music, Lou Reed. Hendrix, Iggy Pop, Gary Numan and one of my favorites,
Alice Cooper. What about Alice attracts you to him?Oh, I don't know. I just grew up loving Alice Cooper.
I mean, up until he started putting out garbage [laughter]. I think the
last album that I really liked by him was Muscle of Love or Welcome to
My Nightmare. But, yeah, I liked his theatrics, the harshness of his music.
I've always been attracted to theater and music, which brings up Bowie
and that whole kind of grand period of the 70s that I like.

Were you a Kiss fan?Oh, yes.

Kiss is my all-time favorite band...Yeah, Kiss rules. I loved them growing up. My walls
were papered with Kiss posters. I've been listening to a lot of Kiss and
Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin lately

Yeah, I heard Sabbath in the background earlier. I'm glad to hear that,
because Kiss and sabbath are my life's blood right now.I'm glad to hear that. That's amazing, because most
people ask me about my influences, and some people are just so off clue.
"Alice who?" [laugh] I can't believe you don't know who that
would be, especially if you're in this gothic scene and you wouldn't even
know that, that's bizarre! So, it's good to hear somebody who knows a
little bit about music history.

You cite Charles Manson as an influence and you
also dedicated Still Born/Still Life to Jeffrey Dahmer. What's the fascination
with killers?
I think, to me, it's that they've crossed a barrier that... well, obviously,
you're not supposed to and you're not allowed to, supposedly. It's kind
of a fascination with that. I'm fascinated with people who go beyond what
they're told or what's normally thought of as correct and appropriate.
I'm not necessarily condoning murder, but I find it fascinating, to see
what would take a person over that line.

Push them to that extreme... to that level of moving
away from everything that society says is OK?
For me, its interesting to try to get a mental picture of where they're
at and where that line actually gets crossed because, of course, I've
felt like killing people, but I keep myself behind the line. It's interesting,
to me that some people don't. They choose another way of doing it.

You use a lot of Nazi symbolism, swastikas and those
sorts of things, on some of your collages, on your album covers, and you
had a swastika on a mask that you were wearing during a show recently.
I know the swastika was not originally a Nazi symbol, but are you interested
in it in the same way that you are interested in murders?
Well, for one thing, it's a symbol that i really like. I think it's.a
beautiful symbol. You know, a lot of people have asked me "Are you
fascist?" which would be pretty difficuIt for me to be. I just find
the imagery really striking and it always demands some sort of attention.
I don't know if I would say that I romanticize the.imagery, but it's just
very Intriguing to me. So yeah, I like using it a lot for my own esthetic
reasons and also because it does garnish some sort of reaction from people
when they see it.
Do you think that people assume that you romanticize it?
I think a lot of people either think that I'm a fascist or that, i'm making
it into some sort of romantic thing.
Do you think that perforners have any responsibility about the images
and the messages they send out with their art? Do you feel a responsibility
to people who might take your usage of a swastika as an endorsement for
what the Nazi's did?
I think performers have a responsibility to perform. You know it might
not always be something that some wants to see or whatever, but to take
on responsibility for something like all this bullshit, of "Well,
this kid killed himself because he was listening to Judas Priest."
It's like, "Well sorry, the kid killed himself because he wanted
to kilI himself."
I'm sure there was a lot going on in his life that had more to do with
suicide than Ozzy Osbourne or Judas Priest.
Right, and I think the same thing whith that is if someone were to go
out and by my Helter CD and see swasrtikas on it and think "Wow,
that's really cool ! I'm gonna shave my head and be a skinhead now,"
or something, you know, that's their choice. It's not my responsibility
to take on for them.

So in the end, what's you're saying is that the responsibility...
...Is that I have no responsibility at all ! [laughing]

I read that Kurt Cobain's suicide had a rather profound
effect on you. If this is true, how did it impact you ?I don't know if it was a profound effect. I was
never a fan of Nirvana. I was in that whole thing where, "Well, this
is so popular, it can't possibly be that good." I've never seen Star
Wars because it was just too popular. I have this thing, which probably
isn't the best way to look at things, when something is immensely popular,
I feel that I kind of
have to back away.

I've
often felt the same, so I know where you're coming from...OK, so you can understand. I felt the same about
Nirvana. I was in San Francisco for a Premature Ejaculation show, in
the hotel room and we were watching television and the news came over.
At first I was kind of callous about it, but then I heard a little bit
more of the music, plus he had been working with Pat Smear from The
Germs, who I love a lot, so I decided, "I'm going, to actually
give it a listen and see what I think." So, I went out and bought
In Utero, which I think is a great album. The night that I heard the
news I did my Kurt Cobain impression on the guitar as kind of a tribute.
Not that I thought, "Oh wow, what a great guy, he killed himself,"
but there was some sort of respect, but not because he killed himself.
I know how difficult the music business can be, and I'm sure for him
it was even more stressful.
You've had a long-time partnership with Eva O. I know that she has changed
directions somewhat as far as her theological views, and I also noticed
that you, on Dream Home Heartache, included God in your "thank-you"
list. Have your theological beliefs changed as well?
I guess for a very long time, because of my own religious upbringing
and how I came to view organized religion, I was kind of dead set against
it. The past couple of years now, I've come to realize that by doing
that, I was just doing the same thing that I didn't like about these
organized religions. I was going to the other extreme and basically
following the same rule, just under a different title. And now, I reel.
that I found God for myself and there is a relationship there, but it
has nothing to do with organized religion, going to church every Sunday...
for me, that's not how I take it. It's a very personal thing for me.
So people are like, "Oh, so now, you're what? You're Baptist? You're
Catholic?" And no, I just have a relationship with God.

Your own relationship that does not need to be
filtered down through a church and a minister...Yeah.
Some people, that's how they work it but I can't work in it that way.I think your comment about becoming the same thing
you were against is really interesting.It's turning so far to the extreme from
what it was that I was turning from, that it just endedup being the
same,
where I got, into this whole, you know, Satanist thing and all of that.
Basically, I'm just doing the same thing,
just calling it something else, and if it weren't for the doctrines
of Christianity or Catholicism or whatever, then there would be no Satanists
anyway. They would have nothing to counteract.
Many of your lyrics seem very introspective and very personal. I'll
read five reviews of the same album and get five different interpretations.
Does this bother you?
Oh no, I enjoy it quite a bit, actually. I prefer not to really sit
down with any one person and try to explain what I'm doing. I prefer
it when people do get their own interpretations and make their own conclusions
about it, because my lyrics, especially for me, are very, very introspective
and very personal. I put them out there for a reason, but I deliberately
make them open to interpretation because I don't want to just... there's
too much that I don't want to just say, but it's still something that
I need to release for myself. So, no, I love people to take anything
I do any way that they can.For me, "Flowers" on Dream Home Heartache
really had an impacf. I think it's one of the most impressive things
you've ever done. There's an honesty there that brings me back to it
over and over again.Thank you. You know, I've gotten really good reactions
over that one, which makes me happy because I'm quite proud of it, myself.
That was a tough one for me because it's a little more direct than a
lot of my other songs as far as speaking about something to do with
my personal life. It was kind of weird for me to do because I was getting
over this heroin addiction, and just sitting down and writing that song
about it, I was not even sure about releasing it at first. It was like,
"This is too personal." But, I'm glad I ended up doing it,
anyway.

Yeah,
you really put yourself out there, and I think that makes the song that
much more potent. I don't want to dwell for too long on Christian Death,
but I do want to touch on a couple of things. First, was the reunion
in 1993 with Rikk Agnew and George Belanger your way of putting an end
to those songs, to that era?Well... that was a very interesting situation.
We had actually gotten back together and were rehearsing and writing
new material, discussing possibly
doing another album together with the original line-up, but after the
show, that was quickly decided against-at least by me.

What made you come to that decision ?I
realized that it would be too much working with these people. I mean,
on the night ot the show I was really upset because Rikk just walked
offstage and we had to finish the show without a guitar player, and
I just knew that I couldn't deal with that kind of unprofessionalism
again. It's too much at this point. If I'm going to work with people,
I want to work with people that I know are going to be there doing what
it is that they need to be doing instead ot going crazy. I've worked
with too many crazy people.

People letting their personal baggage get in the
way of their work...
Yeah... Not to say that I'm not crazy as well, but I can seem to maintain
it somehow.

How did you feel about the documentation of that
show? The video and the CD?
I was surprised, actually. The CD is all right. I don't generally listen
to my own music, but it's all right. It bothered me that because of
what happened at the show, we had to have another guitar player come
in and overdub on the songs, and then this ridiculous crowd noise that
they pulled from some live rush album, or something, and put between
the songs, I thought was a little corny. But the video I was surprisingly
pleased with, aside from the scantily clad girl tied to a post.

Yeah, that was pretty bad. But hey, theatrics...
But not the kind of theatrics that I want on the same stage with me.
[laughing]

Well, I'm glad to hear that.
It was a little Spinal Tap-ish.

What are your feelings toward Valor and what happened
with Christian Death?
I still feel basically the same. When the split happened it was agreed
that they would carry on. Of course, Valor told me that they were going
to be changing the name to Sin and Sacrifice, which became the Sin and
Sacrifice of Christian Death. and then, of course, just Christian Death.
And he agreed upon not doing any of my material
from the earlier albums, which of course he ended up doing, anyway.
And so, that for me was...you know, I expected honesty in this decision
that we had agreed upon and then he broke that. So, I wasn't too pleased
about that. Still I'm not, especially, since I've heard him a lot in
the press lately talking about how I've ruined the name of Christian
Death. In 1980, 1982, he had no part in it, whatsoever. I don't see
where he gets off claiming it as his, but he seems to think that way.

How do you feel about the fact that he still tours
and releases albums under the name Christian Death?
It doesn't bother me so much anymore because it has been so long. The
only thing that bothers me is when I hear that he still does material
from Only Theatre of Pain, which he had nothing to do with. That bothers
me because he's making people believe that he had a part of something
that he didn't.

I've noticed the phrase "Featuring Rozz Williams
of Christian Death" stuck to the covers of some of your non-Christian
Death albums and on advertisements for your shows. Is
this your choice, or would you prefer to move away from being known
primarily for Christian Death ?
Its not my choice. It used to quite bother me, but now it doesn't really
bother me wether it's there or not. I imagine for the most part thats
what I'm best known for, and so they figure that could be a selling
technique.

Are you still working with Cleopatra?
No, I haven't, and the last thing that was done through Cleopatra was
that terrible Death in Detroit, or whatever it's called.

I was reluctant to buy that partly because I was
a little disappointed with the quality of some of your albums on Cleopatra,
especially some of the live stuff that came out. But I'm glad to have
it, especially that show from Halloween, 1981. I'm sure that was just
a bootltg.
Yeah, all of those were taken from really old cassette tapes that I
had laying around.

Have people reacted to those at all? For a long
time you hadn't put anything out, at least that you could find in a
record store, say, and suddenly Cleopatra comes along with The Iron
Mask and the live stuff plus the two studio albums. What kind of reaction
did you get from people about those?
Some people asked, "Why are you putting out so much?" and
I was thinking the same thing, too, after awhile, because I heard that
from a few people I was, like, "Why am I putting out all this stuff?"
Iron Mask was a total mistake. I wish that had just never happened.
The live albums, a lot of people have said the same kind of thing about
the quality of them, but they liked having them just to have some live
documentation. The two studio albums got a good reaction, so that was
nice. But at the same time, really when I think about it, it's three
studio albums, one that shouldn't have been done and two that I like,
and I was writing new material. So when people would start asking me,
I was like, "That's what I do. I write songs and make records."
I don't generally pace myself and say, "OK, well, now it's 1996,
and I'm going to do one album this year, and then in 1997 I'll do another
album." It the songs are evolving and if the band is working together
well, then why not?

What was the problem with The Iron Mask ?
It was a very rushed project. We were in the studio for not even a month,
so that was just really quickly done, and I was getting ready ro move
at the time. I feel it we had more time to work on it, I would have
been more satisfied. I'm not really happy with the production on it.

And there was your spoken word album, Every King
a Bastard Son, which I thought was fairly impressive.
Thank you, thank you. There's a new one coming out. I like Every King,
but this is a bit more proressional, a bit more music-oriented.

That's one of the things that struck me about
Every King it's how music-oriented it was, with strings and,
Ace Farren Ford doing his thing.
Yeah, a lot of soundscapes. I guess I would probably put that one kind
of similar with Heltir and Premature Ejaculation with the soundscaping,
and then the new one is more like songs. It's mostly keyboards and bass.

I just put Every King on again the other day after
not having listened to it for awhile, and I was really taken aback by
the anger that was there.
Oh yeah, I was pissed ! That was a difficult one for me to do as well
because a lot of the stuff on there is kind of like "Flowers"
for me; really personal and intense things I was going through at the
time. That one was a little bit hard for me at first. When I first heard
it, I was like, "Oh God, I shouldn't have done chat, I shouldn't
have let
people know that," but I think people can still make up their own
minds on that, as well.
I've heard rumors of an acoustic Shadow Project album in the works.
It was put on hold because of the studio that we were working in, and
we've been waiting for a call back to let us know when we can go back
in and finish up, but it seems to be taking an awfully long time. I
don't know what a lot of people will think, but it's quite different
from the other Shadow Project records.

But then again, people have probably come to expect
you to do things quite differently from what you have done before.
Yeah, I hope so. It's finally nice, after a few years now of not having
people show up to Premature shows, or Daucus Karota and yell out, "Romeo's
Distress" It's nice that that's starting to fade away.

I noticed that at the last three shows I saw I
didn't hear any of that kind of heckling.
It was nice that people appreciated it when we did do the older material
as well, but we would do shows and people were calling out songs from
the new album. So that's kind of nice, to be able to just think, "Well,
maybe people are finally getting it, you know." If you're an artist,
your art is constantly changing in one way or another. To me, if it's
not, then it's not worth doing any more, if you're just doing the same
thing over and over again. You know, what's the point? If you've done
it once, that's enough.